The other person they called the Dressmaker, and that
was his occupation. Of him it was impossible to get a con-
sistent impression. He was dressed according to the very
latest fashion, with his hair curled and perfumed, fragrant
with eau-de-cologne. One moment his carriage did not lack
self-possession, whereas in the next it assumed a certain
dancing, festive air, a certain hovering motion which, how-
ever, was kept in rather definite bounds by the robustness
of his figure. Even when he was most malicious in his
speech his voice ever had a touch of the smooth-tonguedness
of the shop, the suaveness of the dealer in fancy-goods,
which evidently was utterly disgusting to himself and only
satisfied his spirit of defiance. As I think of him now I
understand him better, to be sure, than when I first saw
him step out of his carriage and I involuntarily laughed.
At the same time there is some contradiction left still. He
had transformed or bewitched himself, had by the magic of
his own will assumed the appearance of one almost half-
witted, but had not thereby entirely satisfied himself; and
this is why his reflectiveness now and then peered forth
from beneath his disguise.
As I think of it now it seems rather absurd that five such
persons should get a banquet arranged. Nor would any-
thing have come of it, I suppose, if Constantin had not been
one of us. In a retired room of a confectioner's shop where
they met at times, the matter had been broached once be-
fore, but had been dropped immediately when the question
arose as to who was to head the undertaking. The Young
Person was declared unfit for that task, the Dressmaker
affirmed himself to be too busy. Victor Eremita did not
beg to be excused because "he had married a wife or bought
a yoke of oxen which he needed to prove";[1] but, he said,
even if he should make an exception, for once, and come to
the banquet, yet he would decline the courtesy offered him
to preside at it, and he therewith "entered protest at the
proper time."[2] This, John considered a work spoken in due
